Maputo, 10 Jun (AIM) – Mozambique’s ruling Frelimo Party, in the central province of Zambezia, has elected the current provincial governor, Pio Matos, as its candidate for the provincial elections scheduled for 9 October.
The Zambezia Provincial Committee met over the past weekend, after the first Zambezia internal elections were annulled because of alleged fraud.
The Frelimo Political Commission had issued an instruction that the current governors must stand again. But this backfired badly in Zambezia, where the Provincial Committee defied the Political Commission and overwhelmingly rejected Pio Matos, on 1 June.
According to “Jornal Txpela”, an electronic paper published in the provincial capital, Quelimane, only 25 per cent of the committee members voted for Matos.
But the Zambezia branch of the Mozambican Women’s Organisation (OMM), which is affiliated to Frelimo complained of corruption in the election, and sent a letter to that effect to President Filipe Nyusi.
According to the independent newssheet “Carta de Mocambique”, the OMM letter accused the Frelimo First Secretary in Zambezia, Paulino Lenco, of being corrupt and a tribalist.
Last weekend, Lenco was relieved of his duties, and the Provincial Committee held a new election, which reversed the result of the first one. This time, 118 of the 120 Committee members voted for Matos. The other two votes were invalid. In both elections, Pio Matos was the only candidate for provincial governor.
In the neighbouring province of Nampula, the opposition Mozambique Democratic Movement (MDM) has chosen a catholic priest, Fernao Magalhaes, as its candidate for provincial governor. He is a former director of the Law Faculty in the Catholic University of Mozambique.
The choice of Magalhaes was consensual and there was no other candidate. Some other figures in the Nampula catholic archdiocese oppose his candidacy on the grounds that it might bring the name of the church into disrepute.
Also standing for Nampula provincial governor is Raul Novinte, the former mayor of the port city of Nacala. Novinte used to be a prominent figure in the main opposition party, Renamo, but last month he resigned from Renamo.
He subsequently joined the Democratic Alliance Coalition (CAD), a grouping of nine minor parties, which is supporting the presidential bid of Venancio Mondlane, who was Renamo candidate for mayor of Maputo in last year’s municipal elections.
On Monday morning, the three parliamentary parties – Frelimo, Renamo and the MDM – all delivered their nomination papers for their parliamentary and provincial candidates to the National Elections Commission (CNE) in Maputo.
Monday was the deadline for delivering nomination papers. Following the veto by President Filipe Nyusi of the amendments to the electoral legislation that had been approved by the country’s parliament, the Assembly of the Republic, on 30 April, it became quite impossible to change the electoral calendar.
The amendments approved would have extended the deadline for candidates to from 10 June to 25 June.
The CNE ignored the amendments and continued working on the assumption that the 10 June deadline was definitive. Thus, even if the Assembly overrules Nyusi’s veto, that deadline cannot be changed.
(AIM)
Pf/ (509)
